


a place that i can call home

by selenedaydreams



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Leonardo Bonucci's Career Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 08:50:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16215632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selenedaydreams/pseuds/selenedaydreams
Summary: Halfway through, that’s when Leo decides that he is dangerous.All of Juventus seems to be.They have this unsettling power to draw him in and make him feel like he belongs in a way that he has never left before. It’s terrifying. It makes him feel like he can weather any result that the season brings them if he’s wearing the black and white stripes.





	a place that i can call home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brampersandon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/gifts).



> for caitlin;
> 
> this has been over a year in the making and i still cannot believe that i have done it. it was more than written and i was getting ready to publish it in the summer when /someone/ decided that they royally fucked up and wanted to come back home. it was one of the happiest moments in my football life and one of the worst in my writing life because it meant that i had to essentially rewrite most of it. 
> 
> i wanted to dedicate this fic to your from the very beginning because this transfer is one of the very first things that we ever talked about and we became closer and closer friends as it unfolded. thank you for always being there for me this year and always supporting me in every aspect of my life. i know it's not perfect, i know some scenes don't feel entirely right, but i hope that overall, you like it ❤️

At just eighteen, it’s easy to get swept up into the glamour of playing for one of the biggest clubs in Italy. There is so much hope built into a transfer like that. Inter is one of the pillars of Italian football. Currently, they are trying to usher in a new age, building up their squad meticulously and carefully, and they want _him_ to be a part of this new, golden generation. 

From the moment his kit is handed to him, blue and black stripes stitched together with promises of glory and success, he never wears those stripes with anything other than utmost pride. 

Then again, it’s not difficult to do when you play fewer matches than the fingers on one hand. While it’s easy to lean into the whispered promises of success, it’s significantly harder to come to terms with the harsh reality that they didn’t select him because they thought he would be one of the stones in the road to the Scudetto but rather just good enough to be a backup. 

But hey, there is some pride in still being good enough to be a backup, he forces himself to believe when match in and match out he doesn’t play and eventually, they shove him down into the U-20 squad. 

It’s fine, really. Neither Inter nor the city of Milan ever really held his heart.

This was a failed business move. That’s all. 

 

 

The perks of barely ever playing in Serie A is that you have the option to spend your Saturdays and Sundays as you please. Namely, huddling up on the flower patterned couch your grandmother loaned you, watching Serie B with bated breath. 

He watches Alessandro dribble past defenders like he was born to do it. Score near impossible goals like it’s the easiest damn thing in the world. It’s worse when he and Pavel link up. If Alessandro was a problem for the opposition before, with Pavel by his side, they are unstoppable. 

The defense, however, is breathtaking all in its own right. In the early part of the season, they go almost two full months without conceding a single goal. Most of the wins are tight, only one goal separating three points from one point. 

None of it matters. He records two matches he manages to remember to buy VHS tapes for and keeps his eyes laser focused on Chiellini almost the entire time. The only player capable of distracting him is Claudio who, despite his gangly limbs and small frame, emulates Alessandro his early days so perfectly it’s almost terrifying, like two people on one team should not both be that kind of talented. 

Sometimes, he drags one of the couch cushions out onto his balcony late at night, slides the orange, plastic lighter out of his jeans pockets and lights a Marlboro. There is a pack he keeps hidden underneath his mattress by his pillow. He allows himself until the cigarette has burned out to imagine what it would be like to play for Juventus before sliding back into his house and into the real world.

The thing is, he knows himself. He does things in excesses, he’s come to terms with some of his flaws early on in his career. The designated times help.

And see, the other perks of doing all of this alone is that you can you can do all of that daydreaming and still skim over the newspaper to read the Inter match highlights and easily slide into a conversation with your teammates at the next training session.

 

 

Treviso.

Inter. Again.

Treviso. _Again_.

Pisa.

Genoa.

Bari.

Pack and unpack. Meet new teammates, new managers, new staff members and say goodbye before they even get a chance to know you. Finally get accustomed to a system, finally makes a name for yourself somewhere and then get dragged back to square one. 

It’s not like he’s alone in this, he’s not naive enough to believe that he’s the only unfortunate soul that the game doesn’t love back. This is how football works, for the most part. It’s the people that get to stay at a club for five some years that are the select, lucky few.

In order not to slip into a dangerous feeling of melancholy, he tries to find the perks of each new city he ends up living him. Bari might be his favorite so far. The perks of a port city are that the tiny house they set him up with is situated just behind the ocean. Close enough that if at night he leaves his window open he can hear the waves crashing against the cliffs and let them soothe him to sleep. 

And when that isn’t enough to lull him to sleep, he can climb out his massive hall window and wander along the shore aimlessly. 

He digs his toes in the sand having purposely left his slippers at home. Lets the cold, salty water wash them clean before he digs them into the sand again, this time deeper. Despite the lack of any warmth from the moon’s glow, everything looks soothingly peaceful. 

It’s remarkable how quickly five years of your life can pass by when you never stay anywhere long enough to form any meaningful relationships. Only play enough minutes every other year to make any semblance of a lasting impact. 

Genoa exhausted him even though he was never really there. That’s _why_ it exhausted it. They didn’t even give him a chance. Inter sold him to them and one month later, they cash out on him by selling him to Bari.

He doesn’t need that annoying voice in the back of his head to remind him that “this is how football works.” Yeah. He knows. And maybe in some ways, he should be thankful that they did sell him instead of keeping him on the bench, stranded at a club that doesn’t seem to want you but doesn’t seem to want to let you go either. Guess that is a much more horrible fate than being cut loose and allowed to spread your wings somewhere else. 

Ventura promised him a starting stop. Clasped him on the shoulder hard enough to shake him during their first meeting and told him that Bari would be different for him. 

Maybe this year that will be true. Maybe finally this year because next year...he isn’t sure that he has it in him to try again. 

 

 

It’s the beginning of March when he gets his first call-up to the national team on the tails of four straight Serie A defeats for Bari. 

This international break is low stakes, Italy is only scheduled to play a friendly against Cameroon and yet. Leo spends the entire flight to Monaco wondering if Lippi had made a mistake calling him up and the entire bus ride to the hotel running down a list of players inside his head who are currently injured, trying to figure out if he was called up as a seventh or eighth choice. 

He knows he’s impressed so far this season. He knows Bari’s defensive power that he and Ranocchia are almost single handedly responsible for. It’s hard to argue with the grainy photo of them on the second page of a newspaper right next to their impressive statistics. They rival even Juventus’ defensive prowess and that’s an achievement he keeps close to his heart. 

But...he also knows that their defense hasn’t been the same since Ranocchia’s season ending injury a couple of weeks ago. Their spell of losses and barely scraped by draws is proof of that. It makes him wonder if he’s actually a good defender or if he’s only as good as the players he’s partnered with.

Maybe that’s true of all positions. A striker is only as good as the midfielders behind him. A goalkeeper is only as good as the defenders in front of him. 

Still. None of that makes him feel any less like the rug was pulled out from under his feet just when he was feeling steady.

 

 

Meeting Giorgio for the first time feels like a long time coming.

But being paired up with him and Fabio in defense is...surreal. It makes him feel even more like a sore thumb, like he’s part of one of those which one is not like other games. 

Although, neither of them seem to share his thoughts. During practice, they connect well. Not perfect but well enough for Fabio to ruffle his hair and tease him about how such a skinny kid can tackle so hard. 

At dinner, Giorgio slides up beside him as he gets his food, piling spoonful after spoonful of spaghetti pomodoro on his plate. “Come sit with us.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Leo agrees without much thought because...well. It occurred to him as soon as he stepped into the dining hall that he didn’t actually know anyone who was called up well enough to barge into the middle of their group and sit down with them. Giorgio is a saving grace, in this regard. 

Giorgio’s smile is warm and inviting in all its crooked glory. A sharp contrast to the frustration and disappointment he witnessed in the middle of December when Bari delivered them one of their heaviest defeats of the season so far. It makes Leo wonder if he’s forgotten or if he just forgives that easily. 

Giorgio’s table is small but inviting - when nearing closer, he spots the familiar faces of Fabio and Claudio. 

“This is Leo,” Giorgio introduces him again despite having already shared named during practice earlier, one hand reaching up to squeeze his shoulder before they both sit down side by side with Claudio and Fabio facing them, respectively. 

Claudio looks him up and down for a moment, forcing Leo to look away under his intense gaze and focus on twirling a couple of pieces of spaghetti onto his fork. “You’re the guy that blocked my shot on goal during the Bari match. Twice.”

Leo stares at him, petrified and flushing in the cheeks from a combination of embarrassment and a strange kind of overwhelming pride. Before he can respond, Claudio’s lips tug at the corners into a faint but unmistakable smile. “It was pretty impressive.”

Ah. So this is how Claudio operates. Despite the bad haircut and the fact that he still has years left to grow into his face, he is nothing short of intimidating and intense. There is a softness to his smile that is drastically unlike Giorgio’s. It doesn’t make him feel safe or at least, it makes him feel exposed and vulnerable and Leo thinks that he really, really shouldn’t like the way that feels. 

“Yeah. You were really good.” Giorgio agrees, dishing out compliments like it’s his day job. 

Fabio drinks half of his sparkling water and chimes in too. “All I remember from that game is Gigi dragging Alessandro into the showers and using the fucking first cabin so I had to walk by them when I left.”

“You could’ve asked to join.” Claudio offers, grinning at him without any sense of self preservation. 

Fabio scoffs. “Last time we did that, it was after we won the World Cup and Alessandro slipped and ended up dragging him to the floor with him.”

Leo is doing his best to diligently eat his dinner and try not to gawk. He knows that these things are more common than not among clubs and national teams. Hell, he sucked off Ranocchia after a couple particularly fucked up matches towards the beginning of the season too. 

It’s just...different. It makes him feel jealous in a way that he can’t quite understand. Giorgio’s warm hand on his knee, making sure that he’s still listening and part of the conversation, it helps him start understanding. 

 

 

At twenty three, he’s different than at eighteen. 

He’s more traveled, more polished as a defender and overall as a player. He’s come a long way from the Inter reserve too young, too inexperienced to bet on and risk ruining their plans for glory. 

He doesn’t need anyone to sugarcoat that truth to him.

Bari struggles in the second half on the league, going weeks without a decent result. Banging out a shy one goal win whenever possible, fighting for a draw when not. In the end, they finish dead in the middle in tenth place having drawn over a quarter of their matches. 

Inter edges out Roma by two points to win the Scudetto for the fifth time in a row. 

Two weeks after the season is over, he sits in his mother’s living room and roots for Bayern for the first time in his life. It’s a cruel kind of irony - to want them so desperately to win as if months earlier they hadn’t knocked Juventus down to the Europa League. 

Still. If Juventus had to suffer by their hand then the least they could do is defeat Inter too. 

If that makes him ungrateful and vindictive, so be it. It’s not like his thoughts can affect the match anyway because if they could, Milito wouldn’t have scored the first goal.

Or the second.

He watches the Bayern players try so desperately to keep from collapsing and try to break down Inter’s defense but it’s hopeless. 

It ends 2-0 in a similar fashion as the Coppa Italia final and he’s forced to watch Zanetti lift the Champions League trophy, completing the treble for the first time in the club’s history. 

For the first time in _Italy’s_ history. 

It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth that mixes with an ugly, sinking feeling of envy. It’s a trainwreck that he can’t bring himself to look away from. He watches the highlights and the replay of the match until well past midnight before finally crawling into his bed to cry himself to sleep as if that’s somehow going to make the ache in his chest feel any better.

 

 

It’s fine. It seems his luck these days to get a lucky break just when things are looking like absolute shit. 

Less than a week later, he earns his official call up for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

This time, it feels less like a mix up and more like he’s earned it. Why? He can’t explain it. All he knows is that he is vibrating out of his skin with excitement and the sheer determination to prove to himself. Not just to Italy but to every single club and every single person that thought of him only as a throwaway player.

Despite knowing that Inter hardly has any Italian players these days, he takes great joy in looking at the official call up list and seeing not a single Inter player on the list. Sure, it doesn’t actually mean that he’s better than all of Inter but. It kind of does. 

 

 

As it turns out, scoring his first goal doesn’t take nearly as long as he thought it would. 

In the pre-tournament friendly against Mexico, they’re already losing 2-0 when Lippi substitutes him on late into the second half, more likely to give him a couple of minutes of play and potentially save them the embarrassment of conceding any more goals than anything else. 

He does that and more. With one minute left in regulation time, he takes the rebound off the crossbar from Pazzini and slides it smoothly into the back of the net. It really doesn’t fucking matter that Pazzini did the majority of the work for that goal, he’s the one that scored it.

In that moment, he runs down the field to high five all of his teammates in celebration, hands held high in celebration. He couldn’t give a damn that they’re losing, scoring his first goal for Italy makes him feel like he’s going to burst out of his skin with pride and an overwhelming sense of hope that threatens to make him cry. 

They congratulate him in the locker room. Gigi ruffles his hair and tugs him in close to him the corner of his mouth so close to his lips. Claudio presses up behind him so tight that Leo can feel absolutely everything. 

That goal is everything that he didn’t know he needed.

 

 

They arrive back at the training camp well after midnight that night, the loss to Mexico weighing down on them like a terrible annoyance - something that should never have happened while simultaneously, something that they should have been able to come back from. 

High stakes aren’t new to Leo but the pressure and prestige that comes from playing for a nation like Italy definitely is. He thinks that it suits him. Despite the higher stakes and higher standards and harsher criticism, he finds himself weathering it better than any of the disappointments he’s been through with any of his past clubs. 

It makes him wonder if maybe this is what he was made for this.

On his way to his room, he rounds the corner and finds Gigi shoving Giorgio against the wall on the left side of the door to their room. Leo hears Gigi’s breathless laugh as he kisses Giorgio harder. 

It’s...incredibly awkward - having to pass by them in order to get to his own room at the far end of the hall.

If they notice him as he walks by, Leo will later pretend that he didn’t notice them.

That he definitely didn’t spend the better part of a minute watching them before deciding to brave it and make a beeline for his room. 

When he tells Claudio, he is unfazed, telling him that he really should get used to Gigi being...the way he is. 

 

 

South Africa, on the other hand, isn’t everything he dreamed it would be. It’s the kind of cheek burning humiliation that he’s never experienced before because hey, when Genoa or Bari go on losing sprees it’s not exactly a deviation from the norm. 

He watches from the bench as they lose Gigi to a horrifying back injury halfway through the match against Paraguay. It’s easy to blame the early draw on that, wonder if maybe there was something off with him before he was substituted and that’s why they conceded the goal. 

New Zealand and Slovakia throw them a lifeline the following day, ending their match in a mirroring scoreline, leaving each one of them with a single point from round one. 

The subsequent draw is difficult to swallow. The fact that their only goal came from a penalty even more so. None of it helped by the fact that Paraguay cruises past Slovakia just hours prior. 

Fabio is their captain and a World Cup winner. Giorgio is his partner here, for Juventus, a seasoned defender and a pillar of Azzurri. Both facts that don’t stop his wandering thoughts. He has a first class seat to how they fumble the ball and give New Zealand the early lead, making him wonder if maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have made that mistake. 

In the end, none of it matters. Absolutely none of it. 

Claudio sits beside him on the bench the entire time, gripping his hand hard enough to bruise when Slovakia scores their goal with less than twenty minutes left. Di Natale smashes it into the back of the net minutes later and Claudio tugs him up and out of his seat in celebration. 

Too bad that Slovakia strengthen their lead within a minute of the end of regulation time. Too bad that they only manage to score one in extra time. Too fucking bad that being defending champions doesn’t mean shit. 

 

 

Leo is already in bed by the time Claudio makes his way back to their room. 

Tomorrow, they will return to Italy. Tonight, Claudio unbuttons his no longer crisp, white shirt and lets it fall in a heap on the floor, his suit pants meeting a similar fate as sheds his clothes as fast as humanly possible. Claudio doesn’t look at him even after crawling into bed. The heat is so intense tonight that the only thing covering him is a thin, cotton sheet that Claudio peels back to mold himself against his side. 

The window is open, letting in the sounds of the city below and giving Leo just enough light to see that Claudio’s hands are shaking. 

They’re both used to losing. He was had first hand experience at watching Claudio lose but it still feels so wrong to see him like this. 

“Hey,” Leo takes one of his trembling hands into his own, contemplating something stupid like lifting it to his lips to kiss his knuckles before deciding against it. Instead, he shifts closer to kiss him properly.

It’s not as if he had a set plan for what his first kiss with Claudio would be like, he just never thought that it would be the result of something so fucking terrible. Maybe that’s just how these football relationships work.

Not that he’s complaining. Especially not even Claudio squeezes his hand before letting it go so he can cup his cheek, scrape his short nails through his hair, and shift so that he’s straddling him. 

It’s...almost cute how he struggles with the sheets. He has to untuck one of the corners from where it’s folded underneath his thigh to finally shove it onto the floor too. When their eyes meet again, they find matching tired but amused smiles. 

Leo rubs his hands over his spread thighs before they finally settle on his hips. “There’s lube in the front pocket of my backpack.” Claudio’s judgemental look earns him a gentle pinch. “What? You jerk off with spit? I always have lube on me. It’s a necessity.”

It’s such a fucking treat to be able to make him smile twice in such quick succession. But it’s even better to make him moan and arch his back all pretty with just the use of his fingers.

Claudio’s easy like this, right now. All he wants to do is brace his hands on Leo’s shoulders and ride him with careless abandon until he forgets about every fucked up thing that happened over the past couple of days.

He’s a fucking sight screwing his eyes shut like that and spilling all over Leo’s stomach while moaning out his name. It earns him Leo knocking them over so he can fuck him into the mattress and get out all of his own pent up anger and frustration.

In the morning, he’ll apologize for the bruises on Claudio’s hips and the bite marks on his neck and Claudio will apologize for fucking over their entire country.

Leo learns that he really seems incapable of not being a fucking martyr all the damn time. 

 

 

After the World Cup, he does what he usually does during the summer and returns home.

His mother welcomes him with open arms, cooks him his favorite meal - lasagna - while telling him over and over again that if he had played then they would have advanced out of groups, as if that doesn’t add fuel to the already nasty, raging fire inside of him.

The thing is, it’s hard to be so bitter about the same coach that gave you your first start, _your first call up_ , with the national team. He’s been battling that one ever since they left South Africa. Holding onto those mixed emotions and only letting them out by running so fast and so far during his morning jogs until he feels like throwing up.

He’s never claimed to have the healthiest coping habits but eventually, all of that anger will go away. Eventually, he will find a way to let it go. Eventually. 

It’s funny, he never expected to let it go during a phone call with his agent.

“You’ve always wanted Juventus, right?” He asks and Leo rolls his eyes because at how rhetorical that question sounds. If only Alessandro could see. 

“Yes.” He relents, realizing that he won’t continue until Leo gives him an answer.

“Good. Because they want you too. They’re willing to pay fifteen million to buy you from Bari and will offer you a four year deal.” This time, he doesn’t wait for Leo to answer, not that he would even get one when Leo is frozen in the wooden chair him the phone. “Pack your bags, Bonucci, you’re moving to Turin.”

 

 

They give him the number nineteen and suddenly, he thinks it’s his favorite number.

It’s good to see familiar faces when he joins them for the first time during preseason. Claudio and Giorgio, especially, take him under their wing, introduce him to the rest of the squad, makes sure that he feels at home even though he’s still on step one of the whole process of trying to convince himself that this is real. 

He’s spent so long pining for the black and white stripes that even when he looks at himself in the mirror wearing his kit in the privacy of his house it doesn’t fully sink in. 

It takes until his first match, until he is subbed in half way throw a 6-0 blowout win against Rappresentativa Dilettanti Trentino for it to start sinking in. Until he makes his first clearance and the crowd cheers for him. 

 

 

It’s Saturday, a little over a month into his transfer to Juventus, and Claudio invites him over to Gigi’s house for a barbeque. Midweek, he scored his first goal for the Bianconeri, a penalty in shootouts, to help them secure a much needed win against Milan at the San Siro. Apparently, Gigi said it was cause for celebration. Apparently, he thinks a lot of things are cause for celebration, according to Claudio. 

Leo doesn’t think much of it, figures that maybe part of the squad will be there as well and possibly some other players from the national team. In all, fairness, he has no idea how these things work because he’s never really been invited to anything like this before. Treviso and Bari were a never stopping revolving door of players coming and going, leaving little room for such camaraderie. 

It’s a fair assumption since Claudio didn’t mention anything more about it, leaving him to assume that it’s something casual. He thinks that maybe Gigi misses seeing his teammates since he has and continues to be sidelined for the near future. 

What he doesn’t expect is to knock on Gigi’s door and have Giorgio greet him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek before leading him into the living room where only Claudio, Gigi, and Alessandro are sitting deeply engrossed in their conversation until they turn to face him. 

Maybe...he’s early? Even though he’s technically late.

Oh.

Leo is used to feeling out of his element, it’s been his second nature for the better part of these past few years, but there is something unsettling about being stared at by your childhood hero and the guy you fucked while you both cried about Italy being knocked out of the World Cup. There is so much emotional baggage in one room that Leo is even more grateful for the wine spritzer that Giorgio fashions for him. 

Giorgio seats himself between Alessandro and Gigi leaving Leo to choose between the leather armchair and the other half of the loveseat that Claudio is curled up on. In the end, the choice is made for him when Claudio reaches for one of the belt loops on his jeans and tugs him down next to him. They’re close enough that Claudio can flex his toes and touch his thigh. 

None of this escapes Gigi. When Leo looks up at him, he finds him watching them. He doesn’t comment though, not on that, at least. “Are you enjoying Juventus?”

“Yes. Of course.” Leo doesn’t hesitate for a moment because that’s the God’s honest truth. There aren’t many things that he is sure of these days but the fact that he made the right choice to join Juventus is one of them. “I came here to help Juventus win.” He says because he feels like he has to. 

It’s a bold statement that none of them seemed prepared for. Although, while Alessandro’s expression is one of pleasant surprise, there is something more complex and unreadable in Gigi’s eyes. 

Giorgio, for his part, laughs. Not unkindly, just... “Yeah. Well. We all want that too.” It’s the sound of longing mixed with a gentle warning. 

“And if we don’t?” Gigi asks, casually, but it feels like a test. 

He has asked himself that very question while packing up his belongings in Bari. What if Juventus doesn’t win this year either? What if they struggle through mid table mediocrity maybe not even breaking the top five? What if this feels like Azzurri duty all over again?

And the thing is...it’s not that he doesn’t care. He absolutely does. He wants to do with Juventus what he could never do with Inter. He wants to usher in a new era of Juventus where they don’t just win the league, they _dominate_ every competition.

But even if they don’t, it cannot possibly be any worse than what he has already been through. Seventh place with Juventus outranks tenth place with Bari by a million and one. 

“Then we’ll try again until we do.” 

 

 

Gigi takes a liking to him immediately, caring on the fondness he seemed to have developed for him during their time together with the national team. 

It helps that it doesn’t take him long to get accustomed to their particular way of defending, makes him eternally even more thankful for the few precious friendlies for Italy that he had the opportunity to play in because they prepared him for this. 

It also probably doesn’t hurt that he approaches defending much the same way that Gigi does. Different methods, same fearlessness with zero regard for his own safety. If he goes harder during Juventus practice than he ever did during Azzurri practice, it’s just a testament to how much more comfortable he feels with himself and his place here. 

While still sidelined with his back injury, Gigi not only comes to as many matches as possible but also, to as many practice sessions as possible. 

Guess when you dedicate your life to something for so long, it’s almost impossible to tear yourself away from it. Leo hopes that one day he’ll feel like that too. 

In the locker room, Leo finds Gigi and Giorgio chatting once he comes out of the showers. They are the only ones there, everyone else having already cleaned up and left while he stood under the hot water spray and it calms the blooming bruise forming on his shoulder.

“Do you always go so hard in practice?” Gigi asks as he moves closer, half amused, half impressed. His hand hovers just above his injured shoulder. “I don’t remember you being so brash in South Africa.”

Leo has to grip the bottle of cologne in his locker tighter to keep from shivering. “Decided it was time to step it up.”

He isn’t stupid. He knows he didn’t have to dive so hard against the ground to keep Alessandro from scoring but in that split moment when it was just him and the ball, he knew he could get it. He knew he could deflect it. Because if he doesn’t practice it now, how will he know if he can actually do it when it matters?

And hey, if it manages to impress their manager and whoever else is watching, that’s an added bonus.

 

 

Alessandro takes him out for drinks in late December.

Well, he takes him _and_ Claudio out for drinks in late December.

They tuck into a booth in one of the far corners of the bar. Leo plays with the neon pink wax of the tea candles in the middle of the table until their drinks arrive. 

Retrospectively, maybe he should have ordered a Martini like the two of them instead of whiskey on the rocks. But outside the snow is falling, blanketing the ground in white, and the peacoat Claudio gifted him for Christmas is only doing so much to keep him warm.

The whiskey helps.

So does his second, third, and fourth round.

Alessandro and Claudio are still nursing their second Martinis when Leo leans in closer to them. “You know, I used to have a poster with you on my wall when I was younger.” 

Judging by how unphased he seems to be, Leo would venture a wild guess and say that he is by far the first person to say that to him. “Really? Not Maldini?”

Leo scrunches his nose at that more dramatically than he means to. “A _Milanista_? No.”

“I meant because he was a defender.” Alessandro laughs, soft and warm against the rim of his Martini glass. “So. You don’t like Milan?”

Leo almost regrets making that comment because this is not really a conversation that he wants to have in his spare time. Or ever, really. That wound still feels too raw to poke and prod at. He shrugs and sips at his whiskey again. “I never liked it in Milan. Guess that’s colored my view of both teams there.”

That seems to silence both of them. A tense, quiet moment falls over them before Claudio clears his throat. “I don’t know why that was your question,” He says, twisting slightly to face Alessandro, “My first question would’ve been if Leo ever jerked off to that poster.”

Leo kicks him under the table, hard enough to jostle their drinks and spill some of Claudio’s onto the table. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. They all laugh a stupid amount at that and no one seems to mind that Leo never actually answers the question. 

Things settle down after that, the conversation drifts back to easier, frivolous topics. It gives Leo a chance to watch the way Alessandro very clearly keeps moving his hand further and further up Claudio’s thigh. It feels entirely too intimate for him to be a part of and yet. They refuse to leave him out of the conversation. 

When the bar is getting ready to close, Claudio reaches across the table and takes hold of his freezing hand. “You should come home with us.” He says, face illuminated by the almost burnt out candles.

It’s not a question. Claudio doesn’t expect him to refuse and to his credit, Leo doesn’t.

They sandwich him between them as they wait outside for their taxi and Leo leans into their warmth like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. He’s whiskey happy and Claudio’s hand in the back pocket of his jeans only makes him feel more comfortable and at ease. 

 

 

Andrea arrives from Wolfsburg at the end of January, a potential, partial answer to the plethora of problems that have marred the beginning of their season. 

Leo finds himself gravitating towards him without ever meaning to. He’s loud and brash, goes in for the tackle with little regard to himself and sometimes, even less regard for the cautionary yellow that might follow his brave endeavors. 

“Referees just don’t appreciate good defending,” He says in the locker after a hard fought win against Brescia. “I mean, it’s not like I killed him. He was fine!”

Leo can’t help but laugh, letting the sound bubble out of his chest as he sinks down in his seat and finally tries to let go of all the pent up adrenaline coursing through his veins. 

Their defense still hasn’t fallen into place quite as well as they might have hoped but Leo is starting to believe that maybe soon enough it will. 

 

 

Getting knocked out of the Coppa before they were even properly in it sucks.

Drawing every. single. one. of their Champions League matches sucks even more. 

Finishing seventh and missing out on even the Europa League for next season is a fucking _disaster_.

Delneri is inevitably sacked at the end of the season and Leo can’t even bring himself to care. He knows he should. It wasn’t like it was entirely his fault, these things are rarely ever a one sided issue. In a different timeline, he would at least be grateful for the fact that he helped bring him into the team but at the current moment, all he feels is the all too familiar regret and shame that accompanies a horrific season like this. 

He’s packing a weekend bag to visit his family, a time honored tradition that he isn’t about to let go off because he’s made it, especially not now. A couple of days away from the city and bullshit that some label journalism would do him a world of good with how drained he is feeling.

But then again, so would spending a night with Andrea.

His family isn’t expecting him until tomorrow giving him all the time in the world to ask him to come over for a drink or two and whatever else the night holds for him. 

Andrea agrees without hesitation, even stopping by the grocery store to pick up a couple bottles of beer as if Leo’s fridge wasn’t already fully stocked. It’s fine. Leo doesn’t call him out on it because that would mean acknowledging the terrible fondness he feels in his chest when he sees Andrea standing on his doorstep with that ever present charming smile and three grocery bags.

“Hope you like cannolis.” He brought dessert too because...of course, he would.

The suffocating heat inside his house drives them out onto the balcony where they sit on the crappy loungers one of his brothers dropped off the last time he was here. His balcony is intimate enough that if he were to reach across, he could brush his fingers over the soft fabric of Andrea’s grey shirt. 

“Where are you going?” Andrea asks, tipping his beer bottle inside the house in the direction of his packed suitcase.

“To visit my parent.” He says, swallowing another mouthful of beer. Andrea’s got good taste in alcohol, actually. “I just need to get away for a bit. Clear my head.”

“You know, there are other ways to do that too.” Leo looks at him, brows drawing together in the middle. His tone is so casual that it throws him for a loop momentarily. 

The underlying meaning becomes apparent as soon as Barza finishes off his beer and moves closer, forcing Leo to shift in his lounger so he can sit on the edge of it. Leo briefly contemplates telling him that he doesn’t think these loungers were made for two but that thought flies out of his head as soon as Andrea’s warm hand cups the back of his head and pulls him in for a kiss.

Right. Other ways to unwind.

“Is this okay?” Andrea asks, voice soft like never before, drawing back just enough to look at him properly. 

“Yeah.” It sends a shiver down his spine in the best, most vulnerable way possible. “Can I blow you?” He asks, because it feels like they’re going to end up there one way or another and he would like to cut to the chase. Not to rush things just. Because he really, really fucking wants to. 

Andrea stares at him for a split second, clearly taken a bit by surprise by the forwardness of that question. Although, he seems quite impressed too. “Yeah.”

It isn’t the most graceful blowjob Leo has ever given but boy does it work. For the most part, Andrea lets him call the shots, doesn’t protest when Leo refuses to go back inside in favor of sinking down to his knees right here, right now.

But he’s also good about giving Leo exactly what he needs. Grips the back of his hair just perfect and holds him down, lets him swallow around him to his heart’s content. Lets him lazily deepthroat him for as long as he needs to. 

After Andrea finishes, Leo wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and lets himself get manhandled to his feet. Andrea keeps him close, hand hovering over the zipper of his jeans, “Can I?” He asks, as if Leo didn’t just spend the better part of the last half an hour choking on his cock with ease and confidence. 

“ _Please_.” Andrea lets him shove his face against the crock of his neck while he gives him the best handjob known to man. Halfway through, that’s when Leo decides that he is dangerous. 

All of Juventus seems to be. 

They have this unsettling power to draw him in and make him feel like he belongs in a way that he has never left before. It’s terrifying. It makes him feel like he can weather any result that the season brings them if he’s wearing the black and white stripes.

 

 

The summer of 2011 brings with it the arrival of Conte.

He is...different. 

Loud and unafraid to speak his mind and most importantly, a goddamn footballing genius. 

Preseason isn’t perfect. They win then lose to Milan in the timespan of 72 hours in the most bizarre turn of events but for the most part, it’s good. 

By the time the season rolls around, Conte has already decided that he wants to make him, Giorgio, and Andrea the defensive partnership to compliment Gigi in goal. 

It isn’t entirely revolutionary, they tried it a couple of times last season and it worked some, failed others. Conte justifies it with a long, semi-incoherent ramble about how all three of them compliment each other perfectly. Each one has something that the other lacks.

Andrea laughs it off in the locker room later. “You think he writes poetry in his spare time?” He asks, standing there naked in all his glory, towel wrapped around his neck.

Leo laughs along with the joke because it _is_ funny...he just seems to like it a lot more than either of them. 

 

 

Actually, it works better than any of them could have dreamed.

They draw almost as much as they win but _they never lose_ in the league.

Losing the Coppa final to Napoli is a special kind of bitter disappointment because last season they would have been happy just to make it there.

But finishing off a record breaking season with a Scudetto win the week prior made them believe that they could do this too. That they deserved even more.

The silver medal hangs heavy and disappointing around his neck, nothing like the hefty weight of the league trophy he clung to the previous weekend, asking Stephan to take at least a dozen pictures of him with it. 

And yet, he likes that the silver feels wrong. He likes that implication. 

 

 

His second season with Juventus teaches him what winning feels like but it also teaches him that it doesn’t come without its price tag. 

He hasn’t been there long enough to properly understand how the Juventus model works but he knows how football, as a whole, works. 

Years of disappointing seasons drilled into him the fact that they all have a timer hanging above their head. 

“Nothing and nobody is eternal,” Gigi told him once over dinner, voice heavy with wine and years of acquired wisdom. 

He never really understood what that meant until he watches the Coppa final crowd give Alessandro a standing ovation on his last match with them.

It feels wrong. He lays in bed that night and instead of contemplating how he could have allowed Hamisk to score that second goal he thinks about how fucking unfair it is to be shoved out of a club after years of dedication and years of crucial and decisive goals.

It doesn’t. fucking. make. sense. 

He burrows deeper into his sheets, half asleep, and thinks that if he were to ever leave Juventus, the board would have to do with him the exact same because there is no way he would ever leave here of his own free will.

 

 

They get back into the Champions League, they drop down to the Europa League.

They fumble the Coppa time and time again.

At least Conte seems to have found the perfect recipe for the Scudetto.

Players join and players leave and he finds himself more and more comfortable in Gigi’s bed, in Giorgio’s office, in Andrea’s kitchen, and between Claudio’s thighs. 

Their football is never perfect but at least he feels at home in it. 

 

 

He wants to strike the 2014 World Cup from memory even more than the one four years prior even though objectively, their performance is better since hey, at least they managed to win one match this time.

It’s impossible to sleep when all you want to do is beat yourself up because if he can help keep clean sheet after clean sheet for Juventus, why the fuck can’t he do that for Italy too? 

Gigi helps him unwind. Spreads his thighs wide enough to burn before pinning his arms above his head. He never seems to have to ask these days for exactly what he needs.

“Please,” Leo begs, trying desperately to rock against him but failing to get much friction. 

Gigi doesn’t respond immediately, far more preoccupied with sucking marks onto Leo’s neck while he adds another finger. Twists them just right to get Leo to arch his back off the bed in the filthiest way possible. “Please what?”

It’s an unnecessary question but god. It works so fucking well on him. From the moment they met, Gigi has read him like an open book and sometimes, he uses that knowledge to his advantage in the best worst way possible.

“Please fuck me.” His voice cracks on the last word, far too tired and too turned on to try to keep the tears at bay. As soon as Gigi slides in, he wraps his legs around him as tightly as possible and buries his face against his neck to cry away all the frustration and self-deprecating thoughts. 

Gigi fucks him hard enough into the mattress for him to think that this might be his favorite brand of catharsis. 

 

 

Everything seems to finally click in 2014.

It’s ironic, none of them expected it to when Conte left the club in the summer in order to manage the national team. It felt like a gain for Italy but a massive loss for Juventus just when things seemed to be falling into place.

Max is hardly unknown, having helped Milan win the league in the very season they struggled the most. But there is always a learning curve with new managers and after a few consecutive years of winning silverware and not struggling, mostly, they dread the thought of slipping back into losing ways. 

It helps that he’s just as restless and somehow yells, even more than Conte. Not unkindly. Well. Not unless they actually deserve it. Leo has come to think that being called an idiot and being clipped behind the ear at halftime when they’re one goal down due to his mistake as Max’s personal brand of affection. 

It’s a phenomenal start of the season. They go unbeaten for eight straight matches before falling prey to a last minute header from Genoa. It’s a small dip in the road that seems almost insignificant when they don’t lose again until the following March.

They win the league _again_ and then drag Lazio to extended time in the Coppa and win that too. It’s not their first double but it’s the first time the story doesn’t end there.

The road to Berlin is far from easy, although after barely scraping by Monaco to make it to the semi-finals, they get a kick out of the fact that Alvaro almost single handedly ended Real Madrid’s hopes for successive Champions League titles. It’s the little things sometimes. 

They’re gathered in Giorgio’s living room the night before they’re set to leave for Germany. Leo, being the first one to arrive, pulled out Giorgio’s giant, cushy couch into one giant, cushy bed so they could all sprawl on it. It’s entirely cliche and juvenile but he couldn’t care less. 

Two bottles of red wine and enough football shit talking to put all pundits out on a job, they find themselves finally getting comfortable, the nerves for what’s to come shutting off for the night and giving them a brief moment of peace.

Claudio hasn’t moved from the moment he arrives, only coaxed Andrea into laying down so that he can rest his cheek against his chest instead of his shoulder. The intimate way Andrea is idly twisting his curls around his finger reminds him of how he and Alessandro used to be.

Then again, it’s not as if Leo has moved from his spot either. He is entirely too comfortable with Gigi’s arm wrapped securely around his waist and Giorgio’s hand on his thigh. When Claudio reaches for the bottle on the coffee table to top off his glass, Leo turns his head to kiss Giorgio just because he can. 

“That reminds me,” Andrea says absentmindedly, “Did I ever tell you about the time I also fucked Max?”

It takes all of Leo’s self restraint not to spit red wine on Giorgio’s cream couch. “ _What?_ ”

“Yeaaaaah.” Andrea continues, unfazed by their shocked expressions. “When we were at Pistoiese together. He convinced me to be a defender too, you know. Back then I wanted to be a defensive midfielder.”

Somehow, that’s even more outrageous than the first revelation. 

“You?” Claudio asks, poking at his beefy bicep and beefy thigh as a means to show that he was definitely not built for that position. “A defensive midfielder?” 

“Hey!” Andrea smacks his ass in protestation. “We can’t all have dainty wrists and cinched in waists like you.”

It’s fond banter that Leo definitely appreciates but he is still waiting for an explanation for what he said before. “You know we’re not going to bed until you tell us about how you fucked Max.”

Leo’s wording seems to confuse him for a moment. “Oh. No. We never did. I just thought about it in passing when I first met him. You know, because he’s got that intense, powerful thing.”

Leo throws a pillow at him, accidentally hitting Claudio too in the process. “Fuckin’ tease.”

 

 

He has lost enough finals to know what the weight of silver will feel like around his neck before he is awarded his medal.

Is it pitiful that the only thing keeping him together on that stage are Gigi’s firm hand on his shoulder and the fact that Inter finished dead eighth this season without a single trophy? 

Maybe but he truly couldn’t bring himself to give a damn. 

 

 

The start of the following season fails to impress so much that Leo can’t turn on the TV or go on Twitter without someone claiming that they still haven’t shaken off that summer’s Champions League final.

Usually, he has no problem ignoring this bullshit.

But usually, it doesn’t feel quite so right.

 

 

Leo visits Claudio after his surgery. 

He is the first one there, Andrea texted him and said that he would stop by in a couple of hours. 

Claudio looks more fragile than ever in the stark white hospital bed in a stark white hospital room. His dazed smile and half lidded eyes have no business being as endearing as they are, even if he knows it’s all a side effect of whatever cocktail of painkillers is pumping through his veins right now. 

“How’re you feeling?” Leo asks, sitting down in the cheap, metal chair beside him.

“Like that one time Gigi accidentally ran into me during practice.”

That gets a laugh out Leo. He remembers that like it was yesterday even though it was in the last days leading up to the 2012 Euros. Gigi tackled him so hard he almost passed out for a moment. “Yeah. Well. I’ll make sure to send Franco Vazquez your medical bill.”

He knows it wasn’t his fault. He knows shit like this happens all the time but hey, coping by holding grudges isn’t even in the top five of worst ways he’s coped with some bad shit happening. 

Claudio flexes his hand toward him and Leo reaches for it without hesitation. “I’ll be back before you know it. Try not to get more assists than me.”

“Someone has to pick up the slack.” If he’s squeezing his hand too hard, he doesn’t mean to but he makes up for it by kissing his knuckles before resting his forehead against the plastic railing on the side of the bed and taking a deep, shaky breath.

 

 

The thing is, they don’t really notice Claudio’s absence. 

For the most part, they rarely ever notice anyone’s absence these days. 

Juventus is so stacked and so chock full of talent that it creates this dangerous paradox - everyone is vital and yet, no one is indispensable. 

 

 

Funny how things work out like that.

Funny how one moment you feel on top of the world and the next, slight, digging remarks crawl under your skin and threaten to turn your whole world upside down. 

Funny how he used to laugh off Max calling him an idiot and understood sometimes he didn’t start because he needed to rest and because just like him once, other players need to start and get the minutes too. 

 

 

It digs at him in a way that he knows he shouldn’t let fester. 

He bottles it up for so long that they all start to notice.

Giorgio invites him over time and time again to try and coax whatever’s bothering him out of him. During international breaks, they give him the time to let it out that now they’re away from Juventus. 

It never works, he doesn’t want to put it into words because maybe, just maybe, it’ll go away eventually. 

 

 

Gigi invites him over for coffee late in November.

Leo parks his car and shoves his hands deep in the pockets of his wool coat the whole way to Gigi’s front door. 

There has always been a comfortable coziness about his home despite the high ceilings and open floor plans. An aesthetic that entirely doesn’t fit the giant, worn in couch that sits in the middle of his living room. Gigi doesn’t lead him to it though, they pass by it on the way to the island in the kitchen where two steaming cappuccinos wait for them. 

Right.

Why had he assumed that this was a casual visit?

“Are you thinking about leaving?” Direct and straight to the point and comforting in its familiarity.

“Yes.” He can’t lie. He has never known any other way to be but brutally honest. It’s difficult to bury the truth when you wear your heart on your sleeves the way he does. And the truth is what Gigi deserves. If he can’t be honest with him, then with who the hell can he?

“Why?”

Leo wants to laugh but stiffles it and takes a careful sip of his cappuccino instead. “I just…” Gigi watches him with expert eyes, his own coffee still untouched. “It doesn’t feel right anymore. It doesn’t feel the same. I don’t feel at home.”  
There is absolutely no clear answer to that question and it feels like pulling teeth to try to pull together all of his messy and contradictory feelings into a clear answer. He has no idea how to explain that it’s like a domino effect for him - once something happens it sets off a series a catastrophic feelings and it no longer is what it used to be. 

Leo sees the tension in his jaw as soon as those last words leave his mouth. He grips his own mug tighter too, reflexively. 

Huh. Saying it out loud makes it something else altogether. It makes it seem more real in a way that Leo isn’t sure that he is ready to deal with yet.

“Have you talked to your agent?”

“No.”

“If you leave in the January window, you probably won’t find a good club.”

Calculated and measured questions. Calculated and measured responses. Leo sees right through him as clear as always. He knows that you can only talk a man like him down from the ledge like this. 

Still. Leo doesn’t believe him. “I’m pretty sure I could.”

“Stay until the end of the season.” Gigi continues, disregarding Leo’s comment and childish attempt at a standoff. “We don’t deserve to lose a good defender halfway through the season.”

And oh, that’s meant to hurt. Gigi has been in the game enough time to have perfected the art of diplomatic digs. 

It feels like a knife twisting inside his chest and he wants to yell back and retaliate because that’s the only way he knows how to fight. 

He doesn’t. There is literally no point because Gigi will only walk away and tell him to cool off before he will talk to him again. 

Instead, he sips at his coffee until it’s finished and makes up an excuse to leave immediately after.

 

 

It’s his 300th match. They secure a comfortable 4-1 win against Palermo, the perfect way to celebrate.

Except apparently, Max doesn’t think so. Apparently, he feels the need to yell at him in the middle of the match about the goal he did a poor job defending. 

Which, yeah, he knows. He is very much aware that they conceded a clean sheet because of a mistake he made but in the grand scheme of things, they get the three points so really, what the fuck does it matter?

It feels like the end of it when the referee blows the whistle and they are officially winners for the day, something that was more than apparent even at halftime. Usually, tiffs like that don’t extend any further. 

Usually. 

“I called you out because you made a mistake that in any other match could’ve cost us the game.” Max barges after him in the tunnel. “Don’t roll your eyes at me and tell me to calm down.”

“Well, I didn’t cost us the game.” Leo fights back, refusing to stand down like he knows he should. “And if you didn’t see earlier, I cleared not one but two shots that Gigi wouldn’t have been able to save.”

“And still, you let one in because you were too preoccupied with playing offense and trying to score because you think you have to be the best player today.”

Oh. That hits a nerve. “Go to hell.”

“Fuck off!”

 

 

Porto is the final straw.

He sits in the stands by himself, staring daggers into the back of Max’s head as if that’s going to solve anything. 

Max didn’t even tell him that he wasn’t in the squad, he found out from Gigi when he told him that he wasn’t on the official list for this match.

It tore him up worse than anything ever has, almost makes him wish that they’ll lose without him but still make it through to the next round so Max feels like the fool for leaving him out and threatening their Champions League hopes. 

They don’t. Of course, they don’t. 

 

 

They don’t always have time for dinners together anymore. Between Serie A and Champions League matches and all of their endorsements and constant business engagements, coordinating the schedule of five people is next to impossible. 

It’s the middle of May when they find the time, two days after their Coppa win against Lazio. A precious couple of days where they let football slip to the side so they can recuperate. It’s an unspoken rule that none of them should bring up the quickly approaching Champions League final. 

They meet at Gigi’s, as always these days. Leo is the last to arrive, finding Gigi pouring wine in the kitchen while Giorgio checks on what he assumes is roast chicken in the oven. Because of course, he has gone all out for a casual dinner. It makes Leo feel underdressed in just his jeans and light blue button up.

Claudio and Andrea are already seated at the table, deeply engrossed in their conversation about what Leo presumes is wine, according to bits and pieces he catches.

Leo can’t help but stand back and watch them, look them over carefully as Gigi pushes a glass of red wine into his hand and squeezes his elbow. Giorgio smiles warm and inviting as always, closing the door to the oven door and putting the bright yellow oven mitts on the hook, “It’ll be ready in a bit.”

It all makes Leo painfully soft and for the hundredth time this year. Makes him wonder why the hell he would ever choose to leave this. Except that’s the thing. That’s the clear distinction that he will not allow himself to muddy up - he isn’t leaving them, he’s leaving a situation that makes him feel undervalued, tossed to the side, unappreciated. 

He isn’t doing anything different than when he left Inter or Treviso or Genoa.

He sits down at the round, oak table between Claudio and Giorgio’s seat, slides down in his chair just enough to play footsie with Andrea under the table. It gets a laugh from him and kicks his competitive side into high gear. They shove at each other under the table until they just almost spill Claudio’s wine all over his white shirt. Eventually, Giorgio puts a stop to it when he brings over their dinner.

It’s funny the way he knows that he and Claudio always wants breast while Gigi wants the drumsticks and Andrea the wings. And the way he brings over garlic salt because Andrea is incapable of eating anything that doesn’t taste like the essence of at least seven garlic cloves were infused in it. 

“Milan offered to double my salary if I joined them,” Claudio says, casually as ever while cutting his roasted potatoes into perfect little bites. 

There is no way that he can’t feel all of them staring at him in unison at that moment but still, he doesn’t look up. Leo is the first to break his gaze, focusing back on cutting a particular piece of chicken over and over again. 

“And?” Gigi breaks the silence.

Claudio manages to keep a straight face for another moment before he’s bursting out in laughter, almost as if he doesn’t quite believe that he got them to believe him for even a second. “And I turned them down. I don’t want to play anywhere but here.” He says as if that’s the most obvious thing in the world. As if anyone even remotely considering leaving Juventus is a damn fool.

“Fuck off.” Andrea breathes out, shoving at him under the table in much the same fashion that he and Leo had been doing earlier but the sheer relief in his voice is unmistakable.

Gigi picks up his wine glass at the same time as Leo does, their eyes meeting for a brief second before Leo has to tear his gaze away.

He never claimed not to be an idiot. 

 

 

It’s March by the time he’s half made up his mind about what the future holds for him. On Saturday, he scores the only goal as they clinch a disappointing 1-1 draw against Udinese. 

Despite everything that has transpired between them in the past few weeks, Max doesn’t unnecessarily bench him again after Porto. He finds himself in the starting lineup time and time again. It’s almost insulting that he seems to think that what happened in February knocked any kind of sense into him.

He half jokingly, half curiously asks his agent if there have been any inquiries made about him. If he’s at all suspicious about his motives, Leo doesn’t notice it. 

Chelsea and Manchester United have asked for him. Again. For as much as the Premier League demands of him, he has never once thought about joining an English side. It cannot be overstated how miserable he feels just thinking about playing there.

The conversation ends at that. Leo doesn’t want to press and ask if any Italian sides are interested in him and risk opening himself up for a conversation he isn’t ready to have yet.

But it’s good to know he has options, even if those options are England.

 

 

He takes the whole team out to dinner because it’s the right thing to do. Because if he has any hope of transferring somewhere else, he’d like to put his blow up with Max behind him and show that above all, he can be a team player.

It isn’t entirely for public relations purposes. Fight with Allegri be damned, he still cares about his teammates. Virtually anyone that he considers a close friend is one of his teammates. It makes no dent in his wallet to a reserve a giant table at a moderately fancy and spend the night eating and drinking away with them.

He slides in between Tomás and Rolando at the head of the table. It’s a pointed choice to sit as far away from Giorgio, Andrea, and Claudio as possible. Everyone else around him might buy this as the finale of a bump in the road of this season but they are the only ones that suspect the truth, that this is only the first chapter. 

 

 

He and Paulo both score in a comfortable home win against Genoa in late April.

Somehow, without asking him to come over, Leo catches a glimpse of Paulo’s car in his rearview mirror as he pulls into his driveway later that night.

The polite thing to do is invite Paulo inside, make him a strong rum and coke to celebrate, and tug him into his lap on the couch to kiss him breathless.

“Thought you’d go to Gigi’s tonight.” Leo teases, slipping his hand under the back of his shirt to press his palm against his warm skin. 

Paulo nips at his throat hard enough to make him gasp. “What? You don’t want me?” He asks, a lazy, mischievous smile tugging at his lips. 

“Absolutely not,” Leo assures him, helping him slip his shirt over his head so he can finally see him in all his half naked glory. He wants to put his mouth on his abs so bad. 

“I’m worried about you,” Paulo said, taking his time to unbutton Leo’s shirt. “You seem...different lately.” 

Paulo looks at him with so much earnest curiosity and worry and that it makes Leo feel his heart is being squeezed inside his chest. He really is fucking obvious, isn’t he?

“I’m fine.” He forces himself to assure him. “Honestly.” Because hey, he’s already lied to his closest friends, what’s another casualty? 

 

 

The road to Cardiff is surreal. 

Between the groups stage and the final, they only concede three goals. 

One of their best Champions League performances. One of _the_ best Champions League performances full stop. 

None of it is enough to change his mind though. If anything, their spectacular run this season and the fact that they are inching closer and closer to a treble makes him feel like if they do this, if he etches his name in Juventus’ history like this then it will be easier to walk away. 

Max is many things - prideful, short-tempered - but he isn’t stupid. Leo finds himself in the starting lineup in his comfortable place between Andrea and Giorgio. 

He forgives himself Cristiano’s goal, it’s easy to when Mario equalizes just five minutes later. 

They find their footing in the first half. They try to carry it into the second half. 

Operant word: try. 

If he forgives himself Cristiano’s first goal, the same can’t be said about the second. When Casemiro smashes a third one into the back of their net, it’s game over, they fall apart. 

It doesn’t help that Alves seems more interested in playing offense than defense. It doesn’t help that Juan gets the biggest bullshit red he’s ever seen in his entire life. 

None of it. fucking. helps. 

 

 

The thing is, Cardiff doesn’t change his mind.

It’s fitting, really, he started his Juventus career with a massively disappointing ending of a season and he is ending his Juventus career with an even bigger disappointment.

 

 

Leo thinks that maybe this is his punishment for what he is doing to his friends, listening to Giorgio tell Tuttosport with such confidence that all the rumors about his leaving aren’t true. That they cannot deprive themselves of a player like him. 

_That he is going to continue to be a pillar for Juventus._

It stabs at him in the worst way possible and he knows he inadvertently thrown him to the wolves because eventually, they will remind him that he said this. 

If it’s cowardly to tell them all one by one, he doesn’t care. He cannot handle telling them all at the same time. It would kill him. 

Giorgio is the second to know behind Gigi.

Leo doesn’t think that he will ever be able to unsee the way his face crumples when he tells him that he is leaving over brunch one day. “What do you mean?”

“I’m transferring to Milan.” This is the first time he says that out loud. He told Gigi through Whatsapp because he is a fucking coward and that’s fine. That’s his own burden to bear. 

“Why?” Giorgio is all confusion and sadness and not a single spec of anger. It’s a shame, really, Leo very much thinks that he would rather get punched than have to try to stomach the sheer amount of disappointment in his voice. 

“I just have to.” Months later and he still hasn’t figured out how to put his feelings into words. “I don’t...feel good here anymore. I already tried to explain it to Gigi.”

And oh, that clicks. 

That seems to shift something inside Giorgio. He reaches across the table for Leo’s hand, prying it gently from his orange juice so he can hold it. 

“Are you sure?”

Maybe. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Giorgio laughs but it lacks any real power. “You said you’re sure. What? Do you want me to talk you out of it?”

“Well...no. But.”

“If you say you don’t feel good here then I wouldn’t want to force you to stay.” He toys with Leo’s fingers, staring down at their joined hands for a moment. “Plus, Milan is only two hours away.”

 

 

“Are transferring?” Claudio barges into his house like a hurricane, not waiting for Leo to shut the door before he starts yelling at him. “Are you fucking transfering?”

Word travels fast, apparently. Once a couple people know, once some information gets leaked to the public and makes the headlines, everyone finds themselves in the know sooner or later. 

“Yes.” Because what else is there to say?

“Why?” 

He stands there in front of him in the hallway, hands clutched together behind his back as he tries to weather this out. “Because I have to. I need to.”

Claudio looks angrier and more confused than Leo has ever seen. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Here is why he avoided telling Claudio - because he knew there was no way to explain this to him. He is one of those rare, lucky few that spent their whole life comfortably at a club, never going unappreciated, never in their life even contemplating leaving. 

“You wouldn’t get it.” He tries to fight back because it’s the goddamn truth. “You’re Il Principino. Juventus has never been anything but your kingdom.”

Claudio looks struck as soon as he says that, almost as he can’t quite believe that Leo would say something like that. Well, join the club, he’s been doing a lot of that lately. 

“Fuck you.” Claudio shoves at him, hard enough to make him hit the opposite wall, hard enough to jostle him while he leaves, slamming the door behind himself. 

 

 

He sends Andrea a ten minute long Whatsapp voice message at two in the morning trying to explain why he wants to leave because he’s a fucking coward and at this point, he doesn’t think he can handle facing anyone with this anymore. 

In the morning, when he wakes up with the worst hangover of his life, he finds text back from Andrea. 

_Yeah, Chiello told me._

Hm. Makes him think that maybe something as decisive as ‘fuck you’ would be easier to hear.

 

 

It’s bigger than Porto.

It’s bigger than his blow out with Allegri or any one singular event. If it was, he wouldn’t have groveled and taken the whole team out to lunch in the most public display of apology.

It’s a gradual but significant shift that forced him to wake up one morning and realize that Turin - _Juventus_ \- doesn’t feel the way it did five years ago or even one year ago.

 

It’s really not that fucking difficult to understand or explain and yet none of them seem to have a clear grasp of why he leaves in July.

 

 

Milan set him up with a nice house just on the outskirts of the city. Close enough that the heart of Milan is only a couple of kilometers away but far enough that he can actually relax and unwind without the hustle and bustle weighing him down.

It’s a nice thought. And Leo is sure that for most players that is a desire that rings true but for him...he would much, _much_ rather be in the middle of Milan so the sounds of cars and people and the always bright lights helped him drown the raging storm inside his head. 

Milan feels like the worst choice almost immediately because despite its proximity to Turin, it wakes up feelings inside him that he buried deep down a long time ago.

This city is haunted by his Inter days so really, it was probably fucking foolish to think that it would be the perfect ground for a new start.

He sits in the middle of his giant, empty living room nursing a bottle of scotch and trying to convince himself that he’s just being dramatic. He can pave new memories here. Find different restaurants, find different places to shop. 

It’s funny though, he never sat in his living room in Turin and tried to tell himself that he was being dramatic. 

 

 

In late August, just before the season is about to start, Montella calls him in for a meeting.

Leo has no assumptions about what it could be regarding and he doesn’t spend any mental energy speculating. Milan is still foreign to him, especially this new Milan.

Montella offers him an espresso from the fancy machine he keeps on the oak drawers in the corner of his offer and Leo accepts if only to have something tactile to focus on while they talk.

Much to Leo’s appreciation, he doesn’t beat around the subject. How familiar. “I want to make you the new captain.” He says, rounding the desk to sit in his leather chair.

Ah.

So, this is how the new Milan wants to operate. 

Montolivo crosses his mind, if seniority, if loyalty, mattered at all then he would be the one sitting here having this conversation now. 

It’s fine. He knows that sometimes silverware matters more than integrity. He didn’t come here thinking that Milan was the pillar of football morality. 

And then again...this feels like a lifeline that has been handed to him. Cutting ties with Juventus is one of the hardest things he has ever had to do and yet still. Tendrils remain. He has not been able to fully cut himself off yet. 

Maybe this is what it will take to finally separate himself from them.

“You don’t have to accept,” Montella continues, although there is an edge to his tone, ‘but, why wouldn’t you?’

“No. I want to.”

Leo watches Montella breathe a fraction sigh of relief before extending his hand across the desk for them to officially shake on it. 

He leaves his office that day knowing that the moment he slips on that captain’s armband, there is no going back. 

 

 

He didn’t do it on purpose.

Fucking _VAR_.

It’s not exactly the best look when a new captain receives a straight red so early on in the season. It’s especially not great when you factor in the disappointing result that ensued. They salvage one point by being constantly on the defensive, never letting up enough to create any truly threatening goal scoring opportunities. 

Contrary to popular belief, he doesn’t consider the two match ban a blessing in disguise. It is a special kind of hell to have a front row seat to Juventus securing a decisive win at the San Siro. 

When the players line up, he thinks he sees Paulo looking at him, pointing him out to Gonzalo. Gigi on the other hand, he knows he isn’t watching, he’s never wanting anyone during these moments, merely looks up into the crowd as he braces himself for yet another ninety minutes of defending his goal. 

It’s not arrogant to think that he could have stopped both of Gonzalo’s goals because he could have. He absolutely could have because he knows his technique inside and out. 

However, what _is_ bad is how little he seems to care about the fact that Juventus dominated them inside their own stadium. It’s bad for a Milan player not to care. It’s even worse for the captain. 

It’s a terrifying feeling, makes his stomach turn in knots as he drives home that night. He showers to try to scrub it off, turns the water to scalding hot and sits on the floor of the shower cabin, watching his dog putter around the bathroom, nosing at the foggy glass with worried eyes.

He reminds himself to breathe.

He reminds himself that he used to cry out of frustration all the fucking time, it’s not something that he is going to unlearn at this point.

He turns off the showers, towels off, tucks himself into bed, reminds himself that these things take getting used to. He made this move because it was supposed to make him feel better. 

 

 

International duty brings a sense of familiarity that he has been severely lacking but at the same time, tension that he has dreaded. 

It helps that Claudio isn’t there. Not that he would do anything other than what he has been doing for the past couple of months - ignoring his phone calls and texts and any attempt to contact him. 

None of them coddle him about it except Giorgio, optimistic as always, telling him that he will come around eventually. For the most part, they’ve all seemed to make their peace with his transfer. Leo holds Andrea’s Instagram post dispelling the bullshit locker room blow up rumors near and dear to his heart. 

He looks forward to another World Cup with them next summer. One last hurrah and a return to normalcy after this season. 

 

 

When they lose in Sweden, it feels dangerous but not like the end of the world.

When they fail to score at the San Siro, because of fucking course they get knocked out of the World Cup in Milan, _at the San Siro_ , it feels a national tragedy. 

It’s one of those surreal things that you can’t quite wrap your head. He takes Gigi, Andrea, and Giorgio to his house afterward and lets them fucking him into his giant California King bed until he’s a boneless, cried out and fucked out mess because that’s what this house deserves to have celebrated inside it.

 

 

He doesn’t regret it.

It wasn’t an impulsive decision.

He isn’t _sorry_.

His fists hit the punching bag until his knuckles feel raw and Gigi’s words morph into a spiteful and bitter unintelligible mess in his head.

Half an hour on the treadmill and it’s easier to justify the way his whole body shakes when he steps into the shower.

He regrets not bringing in his phone to play some music to drown out his raging thoughts. It doesn’t matter what he says, Leo so desperately wants to believe that. No one is going to take it as anything other than his melodramatic opinion.

Only Leo has to know that Gigi performed the diplomatic version of cracking his chest open and putting his heart on display for the entire world to gawk at.

He deserves it. He knows he does. He knows that the hell he put Gigi through for months cannot compare to how vulnerable and exposed he feels right now.

 

Spiteful actions deserves spiteful retribution.

Still.

He wants to believe that you can not feel a single shred of remorse for something and still desperately want to change it.

 

 

There’s a certain irony to planning a trip together to the Maldives and leaving for it just two days after Leo scores a record ending goal for Gigi against Juventus at the Allianz. 

He slots it between Giorgio and Andrea so perfect because he knows exactly how they operate. It’s an unfair advantage, he knows, but then again, does it really matter if Milan loses anyway?

 

 

They split off into two groups - Claudio with Andrea and him with Giorgio and...Gigi somewhere in Turin, presumably chowing down on gelato in bed. 

Almost the entire day is spent in the ocean. Giorgio bought him one of those stupid inflatable floaties and for as much as he laughed it off when he showed it to him, Leo doesn’t let it leave his side. 

After dinner, they return to their room and crash into bed together. It’s still fairly early and Leo is still sipping on his third Mai Tai. 

“You look happier than I’ve seen you in a while.” Giorgio, comments, pressing a chaste kiss to Leo’s tanned shoulder. 

And really, it’s dangerous that Leo won’t put his drink down. “That’s because I’m with you.” He said, and Giorgio laughs it off like it’s a joke but it’s not. “I’m serious. I miss you. I miss all of you. I miss….” He trails because he can’t bring himself to say it but he knows he doesn’t have to. 

Giorgio isn’t laughing anymore, he looks at him with a mixture of pity and worry. “I think you’ve had enough.” He says gently trying to pry Leo’s drink out of his hand. 

He lets go of it but doesn’t relent. “I’m serious.”

“Leo…” It’s another gentle warning, telling him to think twice about the turn he’s about to make the conversation take. 

“I made a mistake. I want to come back.”

 

 

He plays the role of Milan’s dutiful captain until the end of the season because he has to. Because Gattuso and Gigio and everyone that has welcomed him here with open arms deserves for him to give it his all. And he deserves it too, it reflects badly on him if he just gives up halfway through. 

It’s freeing in a way, really, to be able to go out there and give it your all but not really give a single damn about losses and draws. 

He helps Milan get back into the Europa League and bows out as soon as possible. 

 

 

At this point, he has had enough difficult conversations with his best friends that it feels like business as usual. 

He tells Gigi after Giorgio and he doesn’t seem the least bit surprised. Of course, he isn’t. He called him out on it a couple of months prior. 

Gigi is well within his right to make him grovel for his approval but he doesn’t, he can probably hear it in Leo’s tone that he knows how incredibly fucked this whole situation is. 

No one can make him feel any more miserable than he has made himself feel over the past year. 

 

 

Oh, but he does grovel to Max.

He does what he should have done a year ago and apologizes for being entitled and stupid and whatever other name Max has probably thought of him. He knows he has to make amends if he wants to fix this.

It would be within his right to tell him to fuck off again or worse, laugh at him and hang up the phone. 

Max does none of those. He accepts his apology after a moment of contemplation and tells Leo that he will talk to Agnelli and Marotta.

 

 

Leo thinks that there has to be a catch. That there is no way that he gets to be as lucky as this and get Juventus not once but twice.

Yeah, he knows that there is still a long way to go. By the time he makes it back to Turin, Marotta had agreed to his transfer back and said that he would be in touch after speaking with Milan and attempting a negotiation.

He thinks about telling Andrea next but considering how everything went the first time, how spectacularly he fucked up by waiting so long to tell them that it spiraled out of control, he figures that Claudio deserves to know now before anything else takes place. 

By this point, he and Claudio are on speaking terms. Still far more distant than he is with Gigi, Andrea, or Giorgio but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was last summer.

When he came back to Turin for Christmas, they stepped outside of the restaurant they were celebrating at and talked out in the snow for at least a half an hour. It still didn’t feel like Claudio understood him by the time they stepped back inside but as they talked it through. At least he promised not to dodge his calls and texts anymore. 

Leo invites himself over to his house for dinner and Claudio has no objections. 

He doesn’t eat much, not that Claudio’s lasagna is anything short of divine. It’s just. Difficult to eat when he knows the conversation they are about to have. 

When he knows that he is dangerously close to getting kicked out of Claudio’s house.

After dinner, Claudio makes them the best Black Russians that he has ever had and they retreat to his loveseat in the living room. 

Claudio plucks the drink of his hand to set it on the coffee table, leaving Leo confused for a moment before he’s cupping his face and kissing him so soft and chaste. 

God. He melts against him instantly. He cannot remember the last time that Claudio treated him so gently. It’s a nice false sense of security, makes him think that maybe, just maybe, things are going to be back to normal.

Or, as normal as they can be.

“I have to tell you something,” Claudio says, tucking his face against Leo’s neck before forcing himself to raise his head and look up at him. 

Leo is still so caught up in the moment that he doesn’t even register the tension in his voice, he is too preoccupied with the fact that Claudio hasn’t held his hand in a fucking year. “What?”

It’s when he watches him swallow, hard, and lick his lips in that particular way that he only does he’s nervous that Leo immediately reassesses the situation and notices the telltale signs of distress in his tone and posture. 

And if Leo is expecting anything it’s definitely, _definitely_ not, “I’m leaving Juventus.” He continues, because it’s not like Leo is going to do anything other than stare at him, “I talked to Agnelli and Marotta and Max about my lack of playing time. They said that they are willing to terminate my contract if that’s how I want to proceed.”

And oh. There’s that catch.

It’s the cruelest twist of fate and there is absolutely nothing that he can say right now that won’t make either of them feel absolutely atrocious. 

So. He tugs Claudio closer and kisses him harder than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> \- if you only click one link in here, [click on this 8by8 article that explains the essence of leo](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12OX8ZTIt587ZyfRaDSPKIXnxhPMWDIvRIM4MQRqP9Y8/edit), it will wreck you in the best way possible  
> \- [leo is a self-professed juventino](http://j-u-v-e.tumblr.com/post/149271538930/juventus-leonardo-bonucci-born-black-and-white) which is supremely funny considering that he was raised in a house full of inter fans  
> \- [leo’s first call up the national team is truly a thing of beauty ](https://web.archive.org/web/20100303135105/http://www.football-italia.net/feb28n.html)  
> \- [newly promoted bari beat juventus 4-0 in december of 2009 in the one the club’s heaviest losses so far that season](https://int.soccerway.com/matches/2009/12/12/italy/serie-a/as-bari/juventus-fc/817425/), the win as even more impressive because leo’s partner, ranocchia, was suspended for the match  
> \- [gently slides you this picture of italy in june 2010](https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/team-italy-pose-during-the-international-friendly-match-between-and-picture-id101593845) LOOK AT THOSE EMACIATED FACES  
> \- [i literally only found out a week ago barza and allegri used to be teammates AND THAT BARZA, BUILT LIKE A FRIDGE BARZA, DIDN’T START OUT AS A DEFENDER SO ALLEGRI HAD TO STEER HIM THE RIGHT DIRECTION](http://www.squawka.com/en/news/juventus-manager-allegri-reveals-how-he-got-andrea-barzagli-to-transform-his-playing-style/964970#GTcsQvmmYRBb3fhG.97)  
> \- look. conte at chelsea spiraled out of control reaaaal quick but it's important everyone knows he's one of the reasons why juventus because what it and [ that's in large part due to the bbbc backline he put in place ](https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-gentleman-ultra/2017/jun/02/andrea-barzagli-best-signing-juventus-champions-league)  
> \- [chielli sums up why the bbbc are special in the best way possible ](https://www.foxsportsasia.com/football/573292/chiellini-talks-up-bbc-partnership/)  
> \- on june 24th, italy are knocked out of the world cup after he didn't feature in a single match and then literally a WEEK later, on july 1st, juventus sign him for 4 years  
> \- ha. haha. iiiit’s true. [milan wanted to sign claudio and offered to double his juventus salary](https://www.football-italia.net/129182/%E2%80%98milan-wanted-marchisio%E2%80%99) and like the good, dutiful boy he turned it down and had no regrets  
> \- he really was that pissed about the cardiff that [he wrote about it in his goodbye message to juventus](https://www.instagram.com/p/BWj-bL_FTYt/?hl=en&taken-by=bonuccileo19)  
> \- mmm chiello really did go out there in june 2017 and said that [he is certain leo would stay at juventus](https://twitter.com/ForzaJuve2017/status/873452808342777857)  
> but it’s okay because this year when rumors of him coming back started hitting full force he was just [? i? don’t? know? we? will? see?](https://www.football-italia.net/125572/chiellini-%E2%80%98bonucci-we%E2%80%99ll-see%E2%80%A6%E2%80%99) so at least this time around he was in the know  
> \- the fight between allegri and leo that resulted in his potro exclusion is [truly so. fucking. funny. ](http://www.goal.com/en-us/news/shut-up-dickhead-juventus-boss-allegri-rants-at-bonucci-in/12op7cab85md61qwlewtjaukmq)  
> \- aaand after that was said and done [leo i took the whole team to dinner](https://twitter.com/footballitalia/status/839249544760143873?lang=en) as an apology  
> \- barza doesn't make a lot goodbye posts or...literally any but[he did dispell the rumors that leo was kicked or whatever else because of a blowup after the champions league final](https://www.instagram.com/p/BWm2YulH29t/?hl=en&taken-by=andreabarzagli15)  
> \- i can't find pictures of their cute lil maldives holiday and if memory serves me right, that's because it was mostly posted on instagram stories BUT REST ASSURED THAT ALL FOUR OF THEM WENT TO THE MALDIVES TOGETHER AND PAIR OFF IN THE MOST STEREOTYPICAL WAY POSSIBLE - CLAUDIO AND BARZA AND LEO AND CHIELLO  
> \- this isn't really evidence of that but look. i just need you to be aware of [how claudio and barza are together](https://andreabarzagli.tumblr.com/post/169187467038/marchisio-barzagli-dancing-to-sexy-back) because it's umm
> 
> thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed!


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